A bumpy, unpredictable journey through unexplored regions of science fiction.
Nickerson (The Empress Angelina’s Quest, 2015, etc.) offers the second installment in a sci-fi series about a race of advanced, bearlike creatures.
When readers first meet Babs and Tiberus in this novel, the two are about to embark on a trip to the Aldrin system. Although they could have taken a faster means of transportation, they’ve settled on The Dream in the Night, a luxury space transport that will stop at a handful of resort planets along the way. As part of a mission planned in the series’ first book, the two travel incognito as Mr. and Lady Tornbow, high-rolling gem dealers on their honeymoon. Once they arrive onboard, Ti hacks into the ship’s manifest to discover two suspicious brothers on the list of passengers. Babs and Ti note that it would be prudent to keep an eye on them and then go about enjoying themselves. For the uninitiated reader, Babs and Ti are Bearilians—a highly advanced race of interstellar traveling bears with a fondness, it seems, for ancient Roman mannerisms (including names such as Pompey, Tiberius, and Augustine) and phrasings such as “Ladies and gentlebears” and “Henchbears.” In many cases, the characters act like humans, but readers are constantly reminded that they aren’t really human at all. But although the idea of such intelligent creatures may seem silly at first blush, the author shows that Ti, Babs, and their kin are not to be trifled with. Their adventure includes plenty of violence (Ti has no qualms about snapping a foe’s neck, and Babs is quick with a gun loaded with a “fifty caliber round”), and the stage is set for a caper that’s as bizarre as it is action-packed. Nickerson tells the story in a tone that lacks any sense of irony despite its fantastical aspects, which include dragons, pirates, and a wormhole. Although it’s certainly a lot to process, readers who are eager to explore such a disparate fictional universe are likely to enjoy seeing what conflicts develop.
A bumpy, unpredictable journey through unexplored regions of science fiction.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5035-4357-7
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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